


the ashes in my wake

by thelostcolony



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Emetophobia, Gen, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Spoilers for Chapter 12 of The Art of Burning, and i can no longer write anything without the word fuck being in every sentence at least once, emetophobia warning - nongraphic depictions of throwing up, struck by lightning - Freeform, there's excessive cursing in this bc chena is a sailor, you know shit gets real when I post fic inspired by other fic, you shan't regret, you should uh go read Salvage by MuffinLance and then go read The Art of Burning by hella1975
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelostcolony/pseuds/thelostcolony
Summary: The mast just got struck by lightning.The mast just got struck bylightning.Smoke rises into the night like a beacon to bad omens; the rain's extinguish any fires, but the beam's compromised; a deep gash gouges its way down a quarter of it, just enough to be ahuge fucking problem.Chena sighs. He has to do all the fucking work around here, apparently.
Relationships: Chena (The Art of Burning) & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 955





	the ashes in my wake

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Art of Burning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736617) by [hella1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hella1975/pseuds/hella1975). 



> hey demons what's up it's me ya boi back at it again with another atla fic  
> this is uh if you couldn't tell inspired by the amazing fic "The Art of Burning" by hella1975 which is inspired by "Salvage" by MuffinLance and you should absolutely read both  
> for everyone FROM art of burning i wanted to expand on zuko just straight up fainting and sleeping for a day so here have this  
> also chena somehow got a backstory that is APPROVED by hella yes hella makes the rules in this house (but the canon backstory for chena stays the same, this is mine and completely separate!)  
> there's like some dadkoda in this but it's mostly chena cursing uwu enjoy  
> love u,  
> ro

The mast just got struck by lightning.

The mast just got struck by _lightning_. Smoke rises into the night like a beacon to bad omens; the rain's extinguish any fires, but the beam's compromised; a deep gash gouges its way down a quarter of it, just enough to be a _huge fucking problem._

"Chena, absolutely not!" Hakoda snaps, his grip encircling Chena's wrist like a vice. The man's his captain; more importantly, the man's his chief. Chena doesn't need to obey Hakoda any more than Chena needs to obey the spirits. But, like he does the spirits, he'll follow Hakoda anywhere - even to the bottom of the sea.

And that's where they'll all be if he doesn't get up there and lash the mast _right fucking now._

Across the deck, he meets the brat's eyes; they're golden even through the sheets of rain hitting the deck, bright like the sun. The kid has the audacity to shake his head, like he can tell Chena what the fuck is right and wrong.

It's the last straw - the one Chena needed. He throws Hakoda's grip and lunges into a sprint, scrambling to the mast with all his stored grace from those drunken nights spent on the ground. 

"Chena, _don't!"_

"Do your job," Chena snaps, baring his teeth. The wind whisks away the heat of it. "Keep them safe, I'll be right fucking back!"

It's a threat more than a promise, rungs slippery beneath his hands. _Don't do anything stupid, Hakoda._

Chena can control himself, but there's nothing he can do for other people's stupidity. As it is he's got his hands full with his own; the choppy seas make the climb up the mast perilous and impossible, and it takes all his strength to hang on while he's whipped around.

He doesn't have much to live for: his crew and his Chief and the war, sure, but there's no one waiting for him back home, no one checking the horizon line for the silhouette of a sailboat. No one lies awake at night whispering his name, or trying to remember his scent, or reciting the details of his face that they've long since memorized.

(Not like Chena does. He traces his wife's brows in his mind's eye, the curve of her cheek and the tilt to her lips, the way her eyelashes looked when her eyes were closed. He doesn't try to remember any of the times he touched her, because if he reaches out now he knows she won't be there.)

The crow's nest is ashy but intact when he hauls himself into it. Chena doesn't waste any time; he plants his feet, yanks at the spare rope up here, throws it around the mast, and ties the best seaman's knot he can manage while he's being thrown around like a beginner's unstable boomerang.

(He doesn't try to remember his daughter. That - that hurts too much. He'd rather forget than have the pain of remembering. 

But sometimes little details leak in. The way her eyes smiled. The mischievous streak she'd inherited from his side of the family. Her stubbornness, also inherited from him. Her grace, which was her mother's. Her tenacity. Her laughter, loud and lovely. He'd been good at making her laugh.

Sometimes he sees her in people. He tries not to. But most of the time, it happens anyway. 

He sees her in -)

"The fuck, kid!" Chena shouts over the deafening rain as his walking fucking nightmare tilts over into the crow’s nest. The kid has the audacity to try and glare at Chena like he doesn’t look like a half drowned polar-puppy.

“You’re about to get hit by lightning, you colossal idiot,” the brat says, lost under an ear shattering rumble of thunder. Still, Chena hears it.

“You can tell? How can you tell?!” Chena demands, but the brat’s eyes are distant and lost, and he’s swaying badly with the ship as it rocks. And it’s then that Chena remembers where the fuck they are and what the fuck he’s _doing,_ and the fact that it doesn’t involve brat Fire princes. “Hey shit for brains! Are you even listening? You need to get the fuck down! You’ll get yourself killed! I’m _talking_ to you - ”

The sky cracks in half. White slashes down through black clouds, blindingly bright. A gust of air crashes into him, sizzling like meat frying on iron, and the kid is crouched over, then explodes into action and lunges and lightning shoots from his outstretched fingertips in another blazing flash, up towards the sky like it had never been there.

Chena stares. Zuko pants.

The silence is deafening. The rain is still shrieking and the wind is howling and the sea is roaring, but the silence _rings_. 

He’s numb. He’s _numb_. The kid _just_ \- the _kid_ , just - he just _caught_ lightning and -

Chena’s lips move. “What the actual fuck?” he hears, but it doesn’t sound like he’s saying it. He feels like he’s underwater. The silence rings in his ears, faintly buzzing. Like maybe _he’s_ the one who just... just caught lightning. 

Fuck, Chena thinks, dazed. He really _had_ been about to get hit by lightning, huh.

The kid stares back at him, wide eyed and white faced. “Yeah,” he croaks.

And for a second, Chena is fucking - he’s fucking _relieved_.

This brat, this absolute _brat_ just got _hit by lightning_ and _caught_ it because - and then he fucking _redirected it_ like it was some paltry fucking _routine kata_ instead of actual, _real lightning_ , livewire and electrified and he’s standing here alive and he’s fucking _talking,_ he’s fucking - what the fucking _fuck_ -

Chena’s relieved. He’s just… relieved.

But his relief only lasts for a second.

Because then, the kid starts to fall.

The world rushes up to meet Chena, and all at once sound comes back; he resurfaces from that underwater shock and leaps forward just as the kid’s body tilts backwards over the lip of the crow’s nest. His fist snags and bunches up the kid’s shirt, and he hauls the kid back in, heart pounding and rain pouring, and hauls him close.

Amid the rain and thunder and screaming sea, the kid is deadweight against Chena's chest. He’s not moving. 

He’s dead.

“ _FUCK!_ ” Chena howls, and the sea responds in kind, throwing the boat over a particularly vicious wave. It takes every single ounce of muscle that Chena has in his legs to keep himself in the crow’s nest; the kid flops about, held to Chena’s chest by a sole fist, and it’s with clumsy haste that Chena gathers up stray limbs and hoists him closer.

“Don’t you fucking _dare_ be dead!” Chena seethes as he clamors over the side of the crow’s nest, Zuko’s errant legs slung over one elbow, his face tucked to Chena’s neck. He’s deadweight, slippery, an added risk, but Chena can’t just - he can’t fucking leave the kid up there. “Don’t you fucking dare be dead, _you hear me?!_ I’ll never hear the fucking end of it, Kanut will have my balls in a vice if you’re dead, you fucking _brat!”_

The rungs are slippery in his hands; the kid’s heavy and still in his arms. The ship thrashes, trying to throw them overboard, but Chena will be _fucked_ before he has to face Kanut and tell him his fucking _adopted nephew_ or whatever got thrown to the seal-wolves. 

Water churns over the deck with every violent slam of the ship against the waves, and Chena finally loses his footing. He hits the deck on his back and loses his breath, the kid’s limbs smacking against wood. They slide; Chena plants his feet and tries to get some traction, catch something, anything, but it’s just water and his grip on the kid is slipping and they’re headed towards the rails, about to be tosses overboard, and the kid is fucking _dead_ -

He’s gags as something snags the back of his shirt and drags below deck, tighening his hold on the kid and dragging him below deck in turn. His chest caves in as he slams against the ground, the kid collapsing down on top of him.

His clothing squelching with every desperate heave he takes, but he can't get any air. He's gaping like a fish out of water, trying to shrug the kid off him and catch his breath at the same time. Neither works until he's lugged upright, the kid sliding from his chest to his lap, and Aput thumps him on the back once, twice, three times.

“What happened?!” Hakoda demands, heaving the kid off him. Chena gasps, coughing, and Aput thumps him again. “Zuko! Can you hear me? Where’s Kanut!”

“Here,” Kanut snaps, shoving his way through the crowd in the hallway. “Move, dammit, I have to - _oh.”_

Chena looks up. Kanut’s face is grey, almost the same color as the kid’s was up in the crow’s nest. Chena can suddenly see the family likeness.

But then again, grief looks the same on most people. Chena knows that. He never needed to know what it looks like on Kanut.

Fuck, his chest hurts. 

" _Oh_ ," Kanut utters, soft and mournful, and Chena squeezes his eyes shut against the sound.

“Yeah,” he croaks, and Kanut’s eyes fly to him.

“What happened?” Kanut says, an eerie calm washing over. Chena blinks, watching as Kanut brushes the kid’s sopping hair from his face. It’s gentle, almost nurturing.

Chena’s stomach turns violently, nausea rearing, and…yeah, he’s pretty sure he’s gonna puke. 

“I think I swallowed some sea water,” he says, and Kanut turns to look at him, eyes dark and sharp.

“What. Happened.”

“We were up in the crow’s nest,” he chokes, throat closing. Fuck, he really _is_ going to throw up. “The kid - he followed me up there, he said I was going to get hit by lightning. But then - then - "

The sky cracking; a flash of light; darkness suddenly, blindingly illuminated; the kid’s face, white and corpse-like. The croak of his voice. The way his body suddenly fell, a puppet with its strings cut.

“Chena,” Kanut snaps, and he blinks. “Zuko was struck by lightning? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Chena shakes his head. “No,” he says. He hates the momentary relief that crosses everyone’s face, hates that he’s about to ruin it. “No, Zuko - Zuko _caught_ the lightning.”

A moment of blissful incomprehension.

“He _what?!”_ Tomkin shrieks, dropping to his knees and reaching for the kid’s pale fingers, tears already streaming. “No, no, _no - ”_

“It wasn’t going to hit him,” Chena continues. He watches Little Tom try to rub some life back into the kid’s hand. “But he reached for it, and caught it. It was going to hit the main mast again. He caught it and he doubled over.”

“ _Zuko,_ ” Tomkin sobs, forehead pressed to the kid’s wrist, hand clenching dead fingers. “Zuko, no, _please_ \- ”

“It shot out of him,” Chena says, and Tomkin’s sobs hiccup. “He looked at me, and then he fell. Is he dead?”

Kanut stares at him like he’s grown three heads. “Dead?” he echoes. “I… I didn’t…” 

“Is he dead?” Chena repeats, voice clogged. Bile burns the back of his throat.

The kid _has_ to be dead. There’s no way he survived. He was dead weight, motionless for all their perils on deck, and now…

Kanut blinks. “Move,” he nudges Tomkin, and Tomkin goes. He shifts easily into Nanook’s arms. To his credit, Nanook doesn’t cry. To his credit, he looks like he wants to.

Kanut leans down over Zuko’s face, ear tilted against Zuko’s nose. After a minute, he shifts and presses that same ear to Zuko’s chest, lingering.

Chena swallows. His throat aches. “Is he alive, Kanut?”

Kanut sits up. “He’s alive,” he says, tone curiously flat. “He’s alive.”

‘Course he is, Chena thinks. Asshole.

Tomkin bursts into a new round of tears. Nanook blinks, head tilted upwards, but tears leak out the sides of his eyes. Hakoda’s hand flies to his face, pressing into his eyes with enough force that his brows draw together in a grimace.

Chena’s chest is still caved in from earlier, back aching from Aput’s treatment. For the first time, his nose twitches and he catches a whiff of the smell that lingers in the air. It’s almost like a campfire, except -

Except it’s not. Horror dawns, bitter and striking. The smell - it’s not a campfire. It’s not even burnt flesh. 

It’s cooked meat.

Chena’s stomach turns for real this time, and his lips screw up against the bile pooling in his mouth that he’s too proud to spit. No one calls him out on it. No one notices. Least of all the kid, unconscious and fucking - fucking _cooked through,_ Tui and La.

“He’s alive,” Kanut repeats, like a reminder. Chena gulps because he can't spit, and doesn't say anything. They both know that smell, and... not now, but maybe the kid _won't be alive_ in ten minutes, or two hours. That's the problem.

“We can’t stay here,” Aput says. “You’re soaking wet, Chen, and the kid’s gotta get to the infirmary. And we can’t stay in the hallway forever.”

And, well. Aput can be right sometimes, even if he is a fucking idiot.

All of Chena’s muscles scream when he goes to stand, but he stands all the same. He doesn’t even sway. The ship rocks, but not nearly as violently as it had before. The kid lies there lifelessly, but doesn’t look nearly as dead as he did two minutes ago.

Chena doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Instead, he stoops down and gathers the kid up again, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. The brat dangles like this, nose bumping Chena’s last rib, but it’s better than the fucking bridal carry Chena’d been forced into on the rungs of the mainmast.

“Get up,” he tells Kanut, with less force than he needs to use. Kanut gets up anyway.

“You’re telling me,” Tulok says suddenly, “that he’s been powerful enough to bend lightning this whole time? Don’t only _masters_ bend lightning?”

Everyone’s stopped in their tracks by the magnitude of that thought - everyone but Chena, who’s suspected that this whole fucking time anyway. At this point, he’s too numb to feel surprised, or even annoyed. “Are we going to the infirmary?” He snaps tiredly, and Kanut jerks.

“Yes, go, lead the way, for Tui’s sake.”

The kid’s less heavy like this, hands swinging and smacking the back of Chena’s knees whenever he takes a step, and he’s at least easier to manhandle. When Chena sets him down on a bed, he flops like a dead fish.

“Easy!” Kanut hisses as he starts wrestling one of the brat’s arms free of his shirt. “Help me get him undressed if you’re going to throw him around!”

Chena… Chena wants to throw up, and go to bed, not really in that order. “Fuck you,” he says instead, and starts to tug the brat’s pants soaking pants off. There’s a knock at the door; it’s Hakoda, armed with a fresh set of clothing (courtesy, Chena thinks, of Tomkin) and a grim look on his face.

“How is he?”  
  
“Unconscious,” Kanut barks, tugging the fresh shirt over the kid’s head. His hair is starting to dry in too-fluffy poufs, making him look young and sleep tousled. If Chena didn’t know any better, he’d think the kid really did just fall asleep. “How would you be?”

Hakoda’s mouth twitches like maybe he wants to frown, or smile, or both, but that’s not Chena’s business. Now that he’s divested the brat of his pants and Kanut is taking care of the redressing and tucking him in and all of those mushy things, Chena’s exhaustion is catching up to him. 

“Am I done here?” He grouses at Kanut, who’s busy making sure the extra furs he’s tucking around the brat are smoothed just-so. 

Kanut snorts. “Unless you have some sort of life altering injury or ability I need to worry about, yes,” he says. “Get out and don’t come back unless you have a real issue.”

“Aye aye,” Chena mocks, but his tone is too tired to be mistaken as genuinely jeering. The ship is rocking, but it’s calmed significantly: the storm has passed, for whatever good that gets them now. “Make sure the brat doesn’t die. I did a lot of fucking work keeping him alive.”

He’s halfway out the door, shrugging around Hakoda, when he’s caught by the elbow.

Hakoda carefully doesn’t look at him, but the grip on his arm tightens. “You saved his life,” Hakoda says.

Chena scowls. “Yeah. Brat.”

“He saved yours.”

“Like I said: brat.”  
  
Hakoda huffs a laugh, but there’s no humor to it. “Do something as stupid as that again, and I’ll make sure you won’t live to regret it.” He’s dead serious.

Chena’s just glad not to be dead overall.

“You’re welcome, Chief,” he says instead, before extracting his elbow and retreating.

He changes out of his sopping clothing, peeling them away from his skin and feeling, not for the first time, much older than he has any right to. His back aches where he’d hit the deck, and his hands are blistered from gripping at the rungs so tightly. He’s pretty sure he’s got a few splinters in there too, and at least two weeks worth of pain in every single muscle of his body. His head throbs, and his left shoulder blade clicks if he moves too quickly (which is saying something, considering how fucking slow moving he suddenly is.)

It’s a relief to crawl into his hammock, bury into his furs, close his eyes, and try to go the fuck to sleep. He’s saving the throw up for later when he feels less like he’ll swoon right afterwards. Considering his track record with being relieved, he holds his breath for a second, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When nothing comes of it but the creak of wood on water, he relaxes a little, lets his limbs start to unbind.

“So,” Aput’s voice cuts the quiet. “You know you owe the kid your life now, right?”

Chena doesn’t even bother opening his eyes. “Aput.”

“Fuck off, yeah, I know. Worth it though.”

The swing of the hammock starts to lull him. Before he realizes it, he’s thinking of his daughter’s wide eyes, her bright giggle, the gap in her smile where a tooth should be. Black snow drifts from the sky as they ice fish; he catches it on his mitten, staring, uncomprehending; his daughter’s confused gaze, scared and anxious; “Daddy, what’s going on?” and the kid’s eyes, huge and terrified; his daughter isn’t where he left her; “Yeah,” the brat croaks; the ice fishing hole is far too big for just fish; a flash of light -

“Chena.”

He jolts, heart hammering. There’s a clog in his throat. 

“Chena,” the same voice says. “Chena, you alright?”

He blinks in the darkness of the cabin. The lights have been doused. The sea is calm. His inner timekeep tells him on an instinctive level it’s early morning, just before the sun's going to rise. Aput’s voice is hoarse from sleep. “Chena, let me know you’re alive, man.”

“Go back to sleep,” he growls, and there’s a shift and a creak that indicates Aput’s rolled over and done just that. Chena lays there, hammock rocking to and fro, nightmare burning behind his eyelids. He can’t swallow properly. Fuck, this is probably the throw up part that he’d put off last night.

He staggers on deck. Aside from some debris strewn here and there, things look completely ordinary; there’s no sign of the deadly storm that had nearly destroyed their mast and sent them all to a watery grave last night. Just the smell of salt, the predawn darkness, and stars fading on the horizon.

There’s no one looking out at the same horizon looking for him. No one’s missing him, calling him home, waiting for his return. No one’s waiting to see him - not like he’s waiting to see them.

He leans over the rail and hurls. _Fucking finally._

He leans back, wipes his mouth, and spits. The ocean covers up the evidence just like it always has - the evidence of the raid on the South Pole that stole his wife; the evidence of the fishing hole that snatched his daughter; the pain and rage and anger he’s hurled overboard. It just washes it away, sweeps it beneath foam furs, pretends it never happened.

Chena grits his teeth and takes a deep breath through his nose, letting the sea salt strangle him. It’s easier than remembering.

He hates that fucking kid. He hates that fucking kid, because he’s everything that took Chena’s family away. If he hadn’t been called away to the raid - if he had just continued ice fishing with her, if he hadn’t told her to stay put - _if, if, if._

He hates that fucking kid. He hates that fucking kid, and hates that he’s her age, and hates that he has her eyes, fucking bright gold eyes that look nothing like hers did but remind Chena of her completely.

The brat saved his life; Chena knows that. And he’ll - he’ll fucking _thank_ the kid, when he wakes up. And maybe he’ll fucking apologize, too, for thinking the kid was a fucking ashmaker asshole, even though he’s still a brat. It’s the debt he has to settle. It’s the same debt he settles with the ocean every fucking night when he doesn’t hurtle himself over the side of the ship, when he realizes he’s still alive and breathing and it’s been one more fucking day living without them. If there’s one thing Chena’s good at, it’s remembering, Tui fucking help him.

And he’ll apologize and be thankful even if that kid makes his life a living hell. He’ll be thankful even though that kid represents everything Chena hates. Because at the end of the day - it’s not really the kid. It’s just - it’s not the kid. It’s Chena himself, really.

But he hates the kid because it’s just easier.

It’s just easier.

**Author's Note:**

> and they say chena's heart grew three sizes that day 😌


End file.
